


The Marble Muse’s Revenge

by HamstertheGreat



Category: POE Edgar Allan - Works, The Fall of the House of Usher - Fandom
Genre: F/F, F/M, The Fall of the House of Usher, Theatre, script
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:47:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28316256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HamstertheGreat/pseuds/HamstertheGreat
Summary: This is a reconstruction of the original story, in which the twins are indulged in creating and performing dramas themselves in their house, while attempting to achieve unity, the ultimate of their art.
Relationships: Lady Elena/Lady Roshana (original female characters), Madeline Usher/Roderick Usher





	The Marble Muse’s Revenge

ACT I  
Scene I  
Roderick, a young hunter, comes to a tavern in a nearby town. His lips and skin share the same whiteness with the snow, his floating hair shares the same grace with the wind, and his eyes share the same luminousness with the sun. He strolls in a scarlet coat, with a bottle in his hand.   
Madeline, a beggar in white, sits in front of the tavern. Dust sleeps on her long, dark tress and stains rest on her pallid cheeks and breasts. Carefully she observes the passengers with her quivering blue eyes, and murmurs to those who notice her and seem likely to give her a dime or a meal or something else at reasonable cost. 

Madeline: Good evening, sir. 

[Roderick stares at her for a few minutes]

Roderick: (To himself) She’s beautiful like a deer. But she pleases me more than the most beautiful deer does. I would like to get the eyes and tress and skin to decorate my chamber. No, I shouldn’t waste them. Rather, I’d put the eyes beneath my pillow and cover my body with the skin, round my neck with the tress while sleeping. Even gems and velvet can’t provide the same pleasure! But I need to clean them first. There are dark stains and dirt on the skin and tress, and blue blood in the eyes. No, they are her perfume. Most lovely perfume. 

Madeline: How are you doing?

Roderick: It’s good to see you.

Madeline: Thank you. 

Roderick: Do you want to get a drink?

Madeline: I’m not accustomed to alcohol. Maybe you could teach me, if my company pleases you.

Roderick: There should be water provided. Have you had supper?

Madeline: No.

Roderick: I can order something for you.

[They come into the tavern.]

[Enter the Waiter]

Waiter: Good evening, sir and madam.

Roderick: Would you like some chicken?

Madeline: I’ve never tried it, but I would like to. Thanks so much.

Roderick: Fried chicken, please.

Waiter: Yes, sir.

Roderick: What’s your favorite food?

Madeline: I can’t recall.

Roderick: So are you sure you want the chicken?

[Madeline smiles sweetly]

Madeline: I don’t know. What do you think?

[The chicken is served. Madeline starts to eat slowly with her head down to disguise the supposed hunger and greed in her eyes, but she keeps holding the plate tightly with her left hand. Roderick looks at her with increasing interest.]

Roderick: (To himself) The vulnerable living eats the meat of the dead through seducing the stronger living. But see, see the art created by poverty and hunger on the beautiful! Those bleeding, hungry eyes! Now there’s some laughing rosy hue on her trembling paper face. The ice lips are stained with oil.

Roderick: Would you like some beer?

Madeline: Ah…No, thanks.

Roderick: Would you drink with me?

Madeline: My pleasure.

[Two glasses of beer are served. Roderick starts to drink. Madeline stares at the warm liquid in the glass. Soon she holds the glass with both hands and carefully observes Roderick’s countenance. Noticing her reaction, Roderick glances at her and smiles in his heart, as he usually does when he stands among snowy trees in white furs.]

Madeline: I…I think I shall go home now.

Roderick: Home?

Madeline: Yes.

Roderick: Where?

Madeline: Forest.

[Madeline utters the word quickly, like if she is throwing something thorny into a lake.]

Roderick: Oh. 

[His eyes have become even more luminous.]

Madeline: Goodbye!

[She runs away.]

Roderick: Hello.

[He secretly follows her into the street.]

Madeline: (To herself) I need to get some drugs for my heart. It beats so heavily that my body might collapse. 

[He suddenly appears in front of her.]

Roderick: Why does your heart beat like this?

Madeline: I don’t know! It’s killing me. It has started since the chicken. So would you let me go get some drugs?

Roderick: I think I do know. It’s common.

Madeline: No, it’s the first time I feel like this.

Roderick: You’re lucky.

Madeline: I’m dying! Help me!

Roderick: How?

Madeline: Get me rid of the heart, would you?

[Quickly she takes his hand upon her bosom.]  
Madeline: Have you, have you seen any similar cases before?

Roderick: Loads, I suppose.

Madeline: Help me, then!

Roderick: (To himself) It seems that fear is more insufferable than death. 

Madeline: I think I’m almost frozen, and my heart dances like crazy, I’ll break into pieces soon, like those sculptures of ice when they meet a hammer…

[Her voice is low but calm and soft, with strawberries of relief and delight floating in that sweet stream. Roderick embraces her without knowing why.]

Madeline: No…You’re killing me.

[She struggles for breath.]

Roderick: But your face is burning. 

Madeline: Will I be dead by tomorrow?

Roderick: Do you want to live?

Madeline: Of course.

Roderick: With your heart beating like this?

Madeline: Yes. 

Roderick: Okay. See you tomorrow then.

[He leaves.]

Scene II  
Roderick comes back to the tavern the next evening. He sees Madeline, who still sits in front of the door. 

Roderick: (To himself) I shall wait…wait until she’s too tired to breathe. Blood will ruin the piece and my sleep. 

Madeline: My heart starts dancing again. 

Roderick: And your face burns again.

Madeline: Probably because of the alcohol last night.

Roderick: Probably. 

Madeline: It feels good to see you.

Roderick: Really?

Madeline: I miss you.

Roderick: I’ve never heard of that.

Madeline: Is there anything I could do for you?

Roderick: I want your company when I go to bed each night.

Madeline: Yes. Where do you live?

Roderick: Forest.

Madeline: You can’t be serious.

Roderick: I am.

Madeline: Tonight?

Roderick: You’re not ready.

Madeline: I could do that at any moment.

Roderick: I don’t want blood.

Madeline: That’s very kind of you.

Roderick: But it’s strange.

Madeline: Why?

Roderick: You should run.

Madeline: I wanted to run. But being with you makes me feel…extraordinary.

Roderick: (To himself) I’ve never heard of such. How, how can fear inspire anything like this?

Madeline: Miracle!

Roderick: Why?

Madeline: I don’t know!

Roderick: At least we can go home together. I remember you live in the forest as well.

Madeline: Sorry, I…I didn’t want you to find me.

Roderick: You could stay with me.

Madeline: Yes!

Roderick: Until you can provide me what I want.

Madeline: I can, anytime you want.

Roderick: You said you wanted to live.

Madeline: Yes, last night I felt I would die. But now I just feel magic! I don’t think I will ever die with this magic growing and flowing in me.

Roderick: So when can I have your tress round my neck?

Madeline: Now!

[She comes near him and rounds his neck with her tress.]

Roderick: (To himself) Now my heart begins to beat like hers did…Now I’ve become her. 

[His face and lips become even whiter. He looks around in haste, as if seeking somewhere to hide.]

Madeline: I’ll fulfill all your wishes.

[She embraces him, her warm breath and her eyes fall upon his icy face.] 

Madeline: Are you still cold? 

Roderick: Would you stop that please?  
[He pants for breath.]

Madeline: No! Are you dying?

Roderick: Would you let me live?

Madeline: I…Yes, yes, I have magic. I can’t name it but it’s in me. I can save you!

Roderick: That’s very kind of you. 

Madeline: Because I want to.

Roderick: What do you desire, then?

Madeline: I want you to be with me.

Roderick: That’s strange. Do you want me to do anything for you?

Madeline: I don’t know. I just feel good when I’m with you.

Roderick: Shall we have supper together tonight?

Madeline: No, I don’t want to eat anything. This is enough.

Roderick: Okay.

Madeline: Oh, I want you to tell me what you want, since I’ve told you my desire.

Roderick: Can you let me go after I’ve told?

Madeline: Oh yes, you’ve told me. We can book a hotel tonight. Then you can sleep with me.

Roderick: Sleep with your eyes, your tress and your skin.

Madeline: Yes!

Roderick: Surpass all gems and velvet.

Madeline: Thank you.

[She blushes like a cherry blossom in spring.]

Roderick: (To himself) Now she has set a trap for me. And with that magic she enchants me. But my doom will be sweet, and even magical, unlike the deaths of hunters by wild beasts. I shall not cry, but enjoy the last sweet breath of my life. Death by the most beautiful of all preys and predators, my eyes and heart shall be satisfied.

[Madeline kisses him, her lips dance on his face like petals that tremble when dews fall upon them.]

Madeline: I’ve given you more. My lips, apart from what you’ve wished.

Roderick: (faintly) Thanks.

Scene III  
They’ve booked a room in a hotel. There’s only one bed in the room, but it is enough for two. On the pale, crumpled sheet there lie a few silver spots, and the quilt has been taken to wash. They lie in bed like two dews on a snowy field filled with footsteps, and regard each other in silence.   
The Night takes away their dreams, and cast them upon the dim, slumbering street. Then two shadows float aimlessly on the stony, dreamless river until they walk into twilight and are seen no more.   
They open their eyes as soon as they feel the first ray of day. But there are no windows in the room. 

Madeline: Brother.

Roderick: Sister.

[Without turning towards each other, they place their hands upon their own bosoms to feel and listen to the silent, radiant heartbeat. Anything else has melted save the beating of the heart.] 

ACT II  
Scene I  
Roderick Usher, a ten year old boy, and Madeline Usher, his twin sister, are lying in a bed in their bedroom. The intricate, golden patterns combined with the transparent violet colour make the sheet exceedingly arresting. However, their dreamy eyes indicate that they have forgotten everything in the room, including the beauty of the newly bought sheet. They regard each other in a way deviating from their identities as siblings.   
After an hour, they finally sit up and turn towards each other with a smile. Their smile, seem to be painted by the same hand. 

Roderick: No! We shouldn’t have moved. The ending is perfect!

Madeline: But we could sleep again, whenever we want.

Roderick: (smiles) That’s right.  
Madeline: It is the first heartbeat which teaches me to taste the strawberries thrown at my mouth in a haste by the rushing wind, and to join the sweet dreams of the dormant sun through its feeble rays. Let me teach you those, lustrous heart imprisoned by the frost in the forest.

[She kisses him. It was a long, tender kiss, like the glistening blood of a fallen fragrant fruit flowing on the cold ground. For a moment he was still, then he attempts to caress her cheeks with his floating hair and his toes play with hers. She laughs and pushes him tenderly, then they both fall in the bed. Without muttering one word through their eyes, their hands reach each other's bosom and touch the heart. ]

Madeline: It's a lute.

Roderick: Yes. It weaves singing dews into a quiet lake. One cannot hear the breath of the lake because all music dreams in it, while intertwining...

Madeline: But one can feel it, as it resonates the breath of your heart.

Roderick: It always does, and will never sleep.

[Their fingertips find each other, and reunion for a few minutes.]

Roderick: Even the frost in the forest drinks the ray of the stars, and they'd get drunk in a moment, with rainbow flying on their countenance. Let me present the scenery to you. 

Madeline: I've never seen stars bright like that...

Roderick: I'd wait till you're frozen. Then, I'll take your floating eyes from your rigid body, and embed it into my silver arrow. On a sunny day I'd release it, letting the trees and rivers run beneath your eye. 

Madeline: So I've seen them, and now the sun awakes, and it greets me. Now I am the wind.

[Roderick lies down in the bed and watches his sister, smiling. The luminousness in his eyes pursues Madeline’s voice like two candles.]

Roderick: Perfect.

[He murmurs.]

[Madeline lowers herself and kisses his eyes.]

Madeline: Now you’ve seen my voice. I’m sure it now stands in your Memory Palace.

Roderick: And I’d put it in a crystal chamber, caressing and feeding it till eternity.

Madeline: What would you feed it?

Roderick: You. Every moment when I see you and think about you.   
[He pauses for a second and adds]  
And miss you.

Madeline: I always miss you. 

[Motionlessly, they regard each other in silence.]

Roderick: I want to sleep now, so that I may be with you.

Madeline: Dreams are longer, I wish they could be as long as eternity. 

[She lies down. And they both close their eyes. ]

Scene II  
N walks slowly towards the House of Usher to appreciate its magnificence as usual, he suddenly stops when he sees the water in the tarn. The water was formerly blue-green, but now ebony mist from nowhere swims in it, and the bright crystal is soon covered by a dark drape. A marble-coloured female body stands in it. He is unsure whether it is alive, but he stands still and watches it, like a painter who has determined the best distance and angle by instinct.   
Madeline stands motionlessly in the tarn, even her tress seems frozen when the wind suggests a small conversation. She has noticed N and his astonishment, but seems totally unmoved.  
N regards her for a long time, then he finally has the courage to stir the picturesque, peaceful scene after engraving it in his soul. 

N: Hello?

Madeline: Hello, voyager. 

N: Who are you?

Madeline: A woman, in the forest, standing in the water.

N: What are you doing in the water?

M: I stand so long that I forget. The only thing I remember is that I need to stand here, until a voyager comes.

N: So here I am.

Madeline: You are not him.

N: But you did call me ‘voyager’!

Madeline: Fine. Strip off your clothes, would you?

N: (He hesitates for a few seconds) Would that offend you?

Madeline: No, it’s actually getting interesting.

[N strips off all his clothes]

Madeline: Come in.

N: May I?

Madeline: Come. 

N meticulously walks into the tarn, like a believer and admirer walking into a temple of his Goddess. 

N: Then what?

Madeline: Lie upon the water with me.

N: [He has stopped hesitating after his toe touches the ebony water] Yes.

[They lie and float on the water]

N: Where are you from?

Madeline: A forest, as I told you.

N: Where is the forest?

Madeline: Here.

N: Yes, I can see it now. Dark purple fruit, weeping trees, and leaves of all shapes. 

Madeline: Why do the trees weep?  
[She murmurs and sprays her sweet breath upon N’s face.]

N: They weep, for everything. Joy and sorrow. 

Madeline: Ecstasy and grief. 

N: Yes! That’s more beautiful! And for you, I’m sure.

Madeline: And for you. Their tears would become honey, bathing your feet. The honey softens all the stones you may come across on your journey.

N: I forget where I wanted to go.

Madeline: Then find it. Find it in the dews slumbering on the fruit and leaves, find the one whose delicate body reflects your soul. Forget how long it may take.

N: Yes, yes, I’ll go seeking. 

[His eyes gaze at where he stood.]

Madeline: Don’t be afraid if the night comes. When the Night sits in the water to recollect her jewels, the fruit will be gold-ruddy, and the trees will begin to dance, with their tears as pearls and perfume. Don’t be afraid if she leaves, the drunken fruit would simply slip into their purple gowns, and the sleepless trees would record the grace of the Night with their tears. The water would drink the ebony jewels she left, until she comes back to put on the jewels, stir the sleep and add to the record. 

N: So I know more about the water.

Madeline: Which colour do you prefer?

N: I like the instant, when the blue-green sips the dark mist, and the mist teases it by permeating. 

Madeline: When the crystal starts to melt, to breathe, and to embrace.

N: I think I’ve found it! 

Madeline: Farewell then. Let me give you the truth before you go. The honey they give you would smooth all the pains you encounter. But never your own.

N: That’s even greater. Farewell! I’ll remember this tarn forever, since it’s where I’m born.

Madeline: Birth and death are the warm, old friends we can never leave or forget, who greet unceasingly our souls with smiles more precious than laughter. 

N: I want to write down everything you say, caressing them I’ll be grateful forever. 

Madeline: I want to give you something in return, for the inspiration your soul unawarely gifts me. You have given me the seed, and you will receive the golden voice of the flower when it blooms. 

N: Then I would come here every day to caress it with my eyes, until its last meeting with death. 

Madeline: You can’t see it yet. But you will, when its last meeting with death happens, you will receive our call, my brother’s and mine.

N: Sure, I will wait for you. 

Madeline: Meanwhile, why don’t you come here and visit us often?

N: Of course! So it’s…it’s your house?

Madeline: Yes. And Madeline Usher my name, my brother is Roderick Usher. 

N: I heard that your parents have passed away. 

Madeline: Yes. Free and content. But we are in chains. 

N: How?

Madeline: Lady Elena. She establishes her own world in the House, and she loves puppet shows, insisting that the same show should go on forever. We disagree with her, and create our own plays instead, writing scripts in head, discussing it briefly, and performing it secretly. We can’t set up the setting created in our minds, and often lack props, but we can dream.

N: Then everything would be perfect. 

Scene III  
Lady Elena, the spirit who rules the House of Usher, is sitting at dinner table with her twin sister, Lady Roshana, who used to be her kin. Lady Elena is in a white dress. Pearls play hide-and-seek among her hair, on her dress and in her eyes. Lady Roshana does not wear any garment, except the snowy mist that travels with her anywhere. 

Lady Elena: There can’t be two spirits in a house. What happened to you?

Lady Roshana: I think I just became what I longed to be, stripping off my veil and gown.

Lady Elena: The light, the wind, the living things, they will hurt you, if you get rid of what you may regard as burden.

Lady Roshana: They can’t, if I don’t let them.

Lady Elena: They are stronger.

Lady Roshana: They can’t touch my soul.

Lady Elena: Your soul dwells in your frail body. Your thoughts fade when your body lacks energy, your heart cries when you touch a thorn. It’s not what you can control. You need to respect them both, not elevating one and ignoring the other.

Lady Roshana: I can’t care for that much. I don’t care if they’re healthy or happy.

Lady Elena: I know.

Lady Roshana: And I always know what I want. So you should never worry about me.

Lady Elena: The problem is, you never know anything else.

Lady Roshana: You address anything as a problem as long as there is any possibility that they might cause a little harm or inconvenience to you.

Lady Elena: And will prevent you from achieving what you want.

Lady Roshana: But I always achieve it. Pleasure or distress, or more delicate, complicated feelings that haven’t had a name yet, I can always compose my art out of them. 

Lady Elena: But you never compose yourself.

Lady Roshana: I do, as I am art. I know your composing, but I don’t need, and I am well.

Lady Elena: You are lucky.

Lady Roshana: I died.

Lady Elena: And your ghost is still you.

Lady Roshana: None of us can be anyone else. Only in drama.

Lady Elena: So you love drama, like them. The kids, I mean. 

Lady Roshana: Why don’t you?

Lady Elena: It would drink me, then leave me as an empty cup, just like what it does to all those living on their emotion. But I know, you and your kind never learn or even think, despite all the misery in history.

Lady Roshana: We have eyes, warmer, brighter and far more sensitive than many who cover their face with a curtain made of all the tedious news and topics that never excite or afflict, and call it reality. They imprison themselves by calling those who feel and think morbid. 

Lady Elena: I agree. Unfortunately, many are like that.

Lady Roshana: I understand that you believe in peace and mind. But passion is not a beast.

Lady Elena: But it hurts. A great deal.

Lady Roshana: You’re right. But there can be two spirits in a house.

Lady Elena: And they fight each other every day?

Lady Roshana: They are lovers. Love will tell them what to do. In fact, love teaches me everything.

Lady Elena: Yet we are not lovers. 

Lady Roshana: We are sisters. It’s charming too, in another way.

Lady Elena: Like two separate, parallel paths?

Lady Roshana: They have lay against each other for uncountable years, I’m afraid, although being two paths. Presently I’m not a ghost. I would say I am lucky, and I want to endow your ghost a gift, a gift I’ve been dreaming of you receiving. And you will be all right, I promise.

Lady Elena: Anything from you, I’ll gladly receive. At least I know one thing, you’ll never be corrupted.

Lady Roshana: You too. Thanks. 

Lady Elena: I love you.

Lady Roshana: I love you. 

[Lady Elena wants to embrace Lady Roshana, but she withdraws.]

Lady Roshana: You can’t touch me now, but you can feel me. 

Lady Elena: When would you give my ghost your gift?

Lady Roshana: Five years later. Promise me, that you should never discard your show or your design for anyone’s sake.

Lady Elena: Otherwise, I couldn’t achieve anything. 

Lady Roshana: Still, shadows can be beautiful, in their own way. But you are light, so do I. You shouldn’t follow me, so that we could walk together.

Lady Elena: Are you walking?

Lady Roshana: Floating rather. So do you. 

Lady Elena: I’m swimming. 

Lady Roshana: Good. Then I can always see you, through the air and water.

ACT III  
Scene I  
Five years have passed. The twins continued with their performance secretly under the guardianship of Lady Elena in the years.  
Roderick and Madeline are back from a walk, during which they are searching for a bush they need for their theatre. They stop at the gate when they see the figure of a lady falling from the window of their dining hall. The white figure is mingled with scarlet, a dagger that cuts the rosy pudding of dusk into pieces for all the guests to taste. Yet the golden, sweet bead embedded in the dessert is left in the plate.   
No sound is heard when they suppose the lady’s voyage in the air ends. They enter the house. Lady Elena sits near the table. There is some red liquid on her roseate face and white dress, which is almost dried. She has covered her eyes with a piece of black cloth, and her lips are moving, with no audible sound made.   
Noticing the trace of tears on her face, the twins regard her in silence.

Lady Elena: You are back.

Madeline & Roderick: Good evening, Lady Elena.

Lady Elena: Good evening.

Madeline: We saw a lady flying, no, fell from the window.

Roderick: Is she an acquaintance of yours?

Lady Elena: She’s my twin sister. Her name is Roshana. She is going to live with us for some time.

Now the twins again regard Lady Elena in silence, but words, voices and colours rush out of their eyes.

Lady Elena: She paints. And she said that she would like to paint with you, and paint you. 

Madeline & Roderick: That would be lovely.

Lady Elena: I suppose so. But she likes nightscape, and would depart at dusk and return at dawn. So she doesn’t need a room.

Madeline & Roderick: All right.

Lady Elena: Now you know everything about her, I suppose.

Madeline & Roderick: Yes. 

[Enter Lady Roshana. Her complexion and the quivering of her body make a disturbed snowy sculpture of her.] 

Lady Roshana: Excuse me. 

[She attempts to run to avoid Roderick and Madeline’s eyes, but a stream of blood suddenly flows from her lips.]

Madeline: Are you okay, Lady Roshana?

Lady Elena: Go back to your chambers now, kids.

Madeline & Roderick: Yes.

[Exit Madeline and Roderick with a strange smile on their faces]

[Lady Elena holds Lady Roshana’s chin and begins to lick the blood. Lady Roshana stops quivering and falls upon her sister.]

Lady Roshana: I can’t take this any longer…

[Lady Elena throws her sister upon the floor. She takes some blood from Lady Roshana’s lips with her fingers, and rubs them violently against her sister’s neck, breasts, belly, legs, and feet. Lady Roshana cries painfully and desperately.] 

Lady Roshana: Why…

[Lady Elena takes out a whip and whips her sister, growing miles of glistening poppies on the snowy sculpture. Her complexion indicates that she is now driven by a force that has never revealed its power to her before, whereas mere pure pain and despair are aroused in her sister’s soul and body.]

Lady Elena: Our blood.

Lady Roshana: I see. Would you do me a favour? Kill me.

Lady Elena: I know how. But I want you alive. 

Lady Roshana: They’re pretty. The strawberry streams. Running across the cold field. Full of life. Like you.

Lady Elena: I’m merely disfigured.

Lady Roshana: You are. But there is beauty, in the falling apart of a delicate, crystal flower, or the final turbulence of a dormant sea. 

[Lady Elena starts to drink the flowing blood with a thirst, like reclaiming what she has been missing all these years.] 

Lady Roshana: It’s just blood. 

Lady Elena: It’s from your heart.

Lady Roshana: My heart stopped. Five years ago.

Lady Elena: It still beats.

Lady Roshana: Dirty and violent.

Lady Elena: I like that.

Lady Roshana: You said, I’ll never be corrupted.

Lady Elena: And you are not.

Lady Roshana: So why are you consuming the corrupted parts of me?

Lady Elena: Because that’s the only thing I can take with me, and the only thing from you that I dare lay hands upon.

Lady Roshana: You will have my soul, my mind, my spirit and my lost heart.

Lady Elena: Thank you.

Lady Roshana: I will come to you, when my ruthless heart finally releases me. 

Lady Elena: But you have gained freedom and part of your art from it.

Lady Roshana: I suffer. All the time. Because it separates me from you.

Lady Elena: Then its effort will fail. Very soon. I will be with you, I will dwell in your heart. The blue breeze long living in me, which now returns to me, will rebuild the melody. 

Lady Roshana: I’m happy.

[Lady Elena dies.]

Scene II  
Lady Roshana enters Madeline’s chamber, and she sees Madeline and Roderick lying in bed and are murmuring. 

Lady Roshana: Hi, Madeline and Roderick.

Madeline & Roderick: Hi, Lady Roshana.

Lady Roshana: So I’ve seen your performance. It should take place in the bush, and you should be naked, right? 

[They nod silently.]

Lady Roshana: Do you want a theatre? If you can have one. In the house. 

Roderick: Yes.

[He answers in a hardly audible voice.]

Madeline: Thanks. 

[Her voice is higher compared to her brother’s.]

Lady Roshana: Then I’ll make the house your theatre.

[In a few seconds, a tempest invades the house. The sheet becomes white, with no decoration. The wall becomes gray. The furniture becomes comfortless and tattered. The draperies, tapestries and floor become sombre. The windows become long, narrow and pointed, and the panes become trellised. The ceiling becomes carved, vaulted and fretted. The light becomes feeble and encrimsoned. The water in the tarn becomes ebon and lurid.]

Madeline & Roderick: Thank you, Lady Roshana.

Lady Roshana: You know now, right?

Roderick: Yes, we do.

Lady Roshana: Continue with your performance. I would like to be your audience. 

Madeline & Roderick: Yes!

[They cry ecstatically. Although there’s some unnatural trembling in their cry, it fails to appeal to the attention of any of the three.]

Lady Roshana: And I shall bring my canvas.

Madeline: Lady Roshana, how’s Lady Elena doing?

Lady Roshana: She’s well. I can feel that.

Roderick: Great. 

[The twins continue with their murmuring in bed, and Lady Roshana begins to paint with her fingers, like if she is playing a piano. A fluid flows from between her fingernails and fingers onto the canvas. The fragrance of the fluid is unforgettable. It is crystalline, and its colour can vary according to the colours in her mind.] 

Lady Roshana: Excuse me, can you let me drink some ray in your paintings?

[She makes the request like if she’s asking for a glass of water.]

Roderick: Yes. I’ll bring them to you in a moment, mine and Madeline’s.

Lady Roshana: Thanks. I could live on that. That’s so much better. Can I have it every day?

Madeline: Of course. We can paint every day.

Roderick: Just need to add some scenes related to drawings. And you can drink them after we carry on to the next play.

Lady Roshana: Thanks so much.

Madeline: You’re welcome.

Scene III  
After Lady Roshana falls asleep in Lady Elena’s chamber that night, Roderick and Madeline comes into the chamber with Lady Elena’s ‘and paint you’ hovering in their minds, like thieves attempting to reclaim their own property.   
Three paintings lie on the desk.  
The first one portrays Madeline putting a chain of poisonous fruit around Roderick’s neck. The second one depicts Roderick embracing Madeline when they float in the tarn. The third one shows them putting on costumes for a play.   
The three scenes are all taken from their plays or preparation for performing during the five years.   
They are silent and did not look at each other.  
Roderick takes the first one and burns it in the yard.   
Madeline takes the second one and locks it up in the attic.   
Lady Roshana finds only the third one when she wakes up in the morning. She smiles.

ACT IV  
Scene I  
Ten years have passed, during which the twins continued with their drama almost all the time and set the tone of the stories according to the atmosphere of the theatre. They become pallid due to years of exhaustion, and are unable to breathe without the perfumy fluid with which Lady Roshana paints them and their performance. The scent of the fluid now permeates the house, and they haven't stepped out of the house a single time in the years.   
Lady Roshana has been a good audience, who gets free painted ray to drink after each show.  
Today, Lady Roshana suddenly speaks when they are having breakfast.

Lady Roshana: The theatre is a living thing. It is with you.

Madeline: We understand.

Roderick: And we want to be with our theatre till the last moment.

Madeline: So we will perform our last play in the few days left. Do you mind if we invite a friend?

Roderick: An audience. We want him to experience this.

Lady Roshana: Of course not. I shall give him some unforgettable gifts as well, if time allows me.

Scene II  
N receives an invitation from Roderick, and decides to depart in a few days.

Scene III  
Roderick Usher, the last one of his world, wanders around the empty chambers all day, searching for the rust dreams and awakenings of his kind, thousands of which he has never seen. 

Roderick: I know I belong here. I should sense the breath of this place, this lost place in the dreams of my ancestors, I should feel it, vibrate with it. It is my only kin, the only one who has witnessed and captured the burning and vanishing of the flashes in my mind all the twenty years. 

[He raises his head and looks at the feeble crimson light which seems from nowhere.]

Now it guides me, with heavenly roses falling from the windows. I shall pursue the delicate shadows with no haste, as if wandering in a garden, a garden of vibrating hearts, luminous eyes and trembling lips. 

[Following the light, he comes to a long-closed vault, which is said to be occupied for various reasons in the past. The light now jumps on the massive iron door. The key is in the lock, which seems rusty and covered with dust. Without hesitating, he opens the door using the key. A sharp, grating sound is heard when the door is opened.  
When he enters, the colourless vapours in the vault greet every part of his exposed skin, and impress their invisible, countless kisses on his eyeballs.]

An imprisoned ocean.

[He blinks and looks around. A colossal necklace decorated with a heart-shaped, green crystal resting upon a silver crescent lies against the wall.]

I see now. The grand house has been an oaken jewellery box filled with black velvet all the time. And all my ancestors had hidden this secret identity of our house to protect the treasure… There must be some power in it, the power of igniting human thoughts, of caressing human souls…Like that of a Muse. A Muse, I am certain. Look at this stunning universe! The crystalline, lush, gleaming heart of heaven, is sitting in the boat of the silver crescent, giving orders to the long string of stars and lightning that sails the boat. Yet I’m not surprised, at the blinding beam of the secret. It is my destiny, to discover this world. A bridge will be built between the worlds, a world of intellectual kins. A dead thing could not have had all my ancestors’ attention, it must have life. Let me seek the fragrant breaths of my wise, retreated, carefree kin. 

[He walks towards the crystal. As he approaches, the figure of a female emerges in the crystal. The female’s height is the same as him, and her appearance shares striking similitude with his. She slowly opens her eyes, and moves her arms and legs slightly, then her fingers. She walks, or floats for a while. Then she attempts to feel the texture of every part of her body using her fingers, with her eyes travelling with them. Her lips are moving all the time, breathing or murmuring, he does not know. Finally, she turns away from him and is still again, with her eyes wandering somewhere, where he does not know.] 

How long has she slept? My sister. Is she imprisoned in this heart of someone and put to eternal sleep by the heart’s melody? Or is she the princess of her own lush heart who would like to dwell there all her life? After all, I feel that she longs to feel, she longs to explore. Look at the movement of her fingers and her eyes! And she longs to express…Her lips are moving! Now she has fallen into her thoughts…falling from a cliff, into the immeasurable, sweet, glistening depth of human mind. The adventure that I’ve immersed in all my life. Let she think, let she dream, let she rest. A retreated angel! The Angel of the House of Usher, who smiles through the fading walls, whose unstained smile has reignited the fading souls of all my ancestors and unknowingly my own! A child she is, coming into the world and beginning to explore her body and the surrounding. A child she shall remain, in the lullaby of thoughts most deep and pure. It seems like that my presence has awakened her, so do I play a part in her waking and thinking? Would she fall into that darkness again when I simply step away from the miracle heart?

[He steps away towards the door, and the female figure disappears.]

True! She sleeps again! But, but she could still be looking at me, with the eternal freshness of her luminous eyes through the quilt of the green water. It’s merely that I can’t see her! But she is there. And she would think whenever she wants. I’m certain of that. Let me prove it. 

[He walks towards the crystal. The female figure appears again, but she still pays no attention to him.]

I see…Now I am even more certain that she is thinking, as she cannot see me in the depth of her floating white mind. How lovely, how lovely it is to live in a place where there is more than one mind at work. Wondrous, wondrous is the secret power that operates in the mind and reveals a flawless, miraculous world to us as soon as we close our eyes. I am not alone, with the wisdom of all my ancestors, and I will never be alone, with the company of the angel of the house and of Usher. Shall I close the door? Yes, as a reverent guest to a heavenly world, I would like to stay forever, yet I dare not disturb the angel for long. I’ll take my leave now. 

[He closes the door and leaves the key in the lock.]

Scene IV  
Seven days later, Roderick Usher comes into the vault again. He walks towards the crystal, and the female figure appears. She turns towards him, but with her eyes closed.

Roderick: Good morning, my angel. I’ve read about some unearthly paintings recently, they are like miracle, from the hands of ghosts and spirits. Let me show you.   
[He takes out a book and shows the page to the female.]  
Would you like to discuss them with me? 

[The female figure starts to murmur, but no sound is heard by him.]

I can’t hear you…I don’t know why. I don’t even know whether I should talk to you. I’m sorry. Would you tell me, am I supposed to talk to you about the glistening things in our worlds? You could nod or shake your head, my dearest Muse.

[The female figure keeps murmuring, but does not move her head.]

Please, my Muse. Please tell me, my only kin. 

[The female figure stops murmuring, and stands still like a sculpture.]

Now I know. You have your world, and are happy with it. But have you ever thought of a bridge? A bridge that connects the brilliant, same and different ideas and weaves them into a new space? Sharing, understanding, Intertwining and evolving. 

[The female figure moves her head slightly.]

Thank you, my Muse, thank you for listening to my suggestion. Shall we carry out a little experiment? An experiment to create a new world for the House of Usher. A simple bridge, constructed by a finger.

[Slowly, softly he put his finger upon the crystal. In a moment, the heart falls apart, and the whole necklace vanishes, leaving only the female standing in front of him.]

Sorry, sorry, my Muse. I have no idea…Have I, have I destroyed your heavenly world, have I dragged you into my fading, empty one? Grant me the punishment I deserve, if I have done that. And tell me, tell me how I can make up my unforgivable faults.

[The female does not speak or move.]

My Muse, you have forgiven me? Sure, your kindness and sweetness are the rosy light that shines in the heart of the house. I will attempt to make up my faults anyway. So, shall we construct a new world together? Hold my hand if you agree.

[He extends his hand. She looks at him, but is motionless.]

Would you construct a new world with me? Just say yes in your way if you want.

[She makes a failed attempt to move forward, and falls upon him. He looks at her eyes, and she winks at him, with no other expression on her countenance. He embraces her and then carries her to the apartments of the upper portion of the house. Feeling her bare, cold skin, he helps her to put on a white robe.]

A living could claim her identity from a garden of sculptures simply by a wink. No, it’s not the wink, it’s the eyes reaching out to you, like the waves imprisoned by the earth, caught in an eternal struggle to reach the cliff, the trees, the things beyond them. That creates the everlasting ballet and symphony. The beauty of eternal life, of ever delicate heart, of never ending tears, of an amaranthine candle in the eye. My eyes are lit, by the candle in her eye. Now I see again. My sister, Madeline Usher, this should be her name, the name from in my childhood dreams. 

Hi, Madeline, my name is Roderick Usher.  
[He touches her cold cheeks and pallid lips softly. She winks.]

Now the jewellery box is no longer a jewellery box, given that the jewellery is gone, and the angel sleeping in it has set her feet upon the oaken ground. Both worlds have vanished. What is this place now? What will it be?   
The oaken ground and the angel and a dreamy artist…Shouldn’t there be dark woods where all the terrible and beautiful creatures are hidden in the shadows, waiting for us to company them?   
[He looks at the dark draperies and tapestries.]  
Shouldn’t the house be a hidden paradise attended by the red tress of a fairy smiling behind the light and mist?   
[He raises his head and looks at the feeble crimson light.]  
Shouldn’t the angel’s ever burning candle and the flame lit by it in the artist’s heart light the place forever?  
Let’s decorate our home! With all the beautiful things we can create! Embraces, glances, paintings, melodies and sweet silence! 

[He helps Madeline to lie on the sofa, and brings canvas and brush and a chair near it. Making sure that she can see his canvas, he starts to paint beside her.]

Light, not from the Sun, not from the stars, not from anywhere on the earth or in the sky, but from our heart, our smooth, snowy heart, enduring for ages and ages. The long, delicate, white spiral staircase of Usher constructed by lutes! And the blinding, intense ray of thoughts runs down and down, from the mind of all our ancestors to ours!   
[He paints as he passionately describes the scenery in his painting to Madeline. Madeline listens to him, as the ray in the painting intertwines with the ray in her eyes.]

Yes, yes, we don’t know each other’s language. But I have constructed a bridge with my finger, and I will continue, with my brush and guitar, with the deathless flame in my heart. The first bridge is a mistake, it takes you from your world, and deprives you of the ability of dancing by yourself. I will try my best to make it up, by letting your soul soar in the world of my art, in the world of sublime colours and images and melodies! 

[Madeline listens to him motionlessly but with a trembling ray in her eyes until he finishes the painting.]

Thank you, thank you, my angel. That’s the best comment I’ve ever received. Touched by some scenery you have never seen in your life, the soul’s unconscious tremble at its splendour. What pure, glittering gift from an angel! My soul has danced as much as yours, and I would say they are dancing with each other! In a hall of black tulips, stepping onto the delicate petals, hence wearing ballet slippers of dews and fragrance, our hands holding each other, and our bodies move in distinct gestures from two worlds, with awe our eyes appreciate each other’s exotic grace, our lips speaking of all the beauty we feel at this moment in different languages but with the same trembling. The music…Let’s have the music!

[He takes out his guitar and begins to sing a song written and composed by one of his ancestors accompanied by guitar. Yet he sings only part of it.]

In the greenest of our valleys,   
By good angels tenanted,   
Once a fair and stately palace—   
Radiant palace—reared its head.   
In the monarch Thought’s dominion—   
It stood there!   
Never seraph spread a pinion   
Over fabric half so fair. 

Banners yellow, glorious, golden,   
On its roof did float and flow   
(This—all this—was in the olden Time long ago)   
And every gentle air that dallied,   
In that sweet day,   
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,   
A winged odor went away. 

Wanderers in that happy valley   
Through two luminous windows saw Spirits moving musically   
To a lute’s well-tunéd law;   
Round about a throne, where sitting   
(Porphyrogene!)   
In state his glory well befitting,   
The ruler of the realm was seen. 

And all with pearl and ruby glowing   
Was the fair palace door,   
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing   
And sparkling evermore,   
A troop of Echoes whose sweet duty   
Was but to sing,   
In voices of surpassing beauty,   
The wit and wisdom of their king. [1]

[He hugs Madeline and manages to dance with her in a graceful way, like how one could dance with a sculpture. He kisses her floating dark hair, and appreciates its colour when it occasionally comes under the crimson light.] 

Now your aureole shows itself! The perfumed blood of roses, it is to flow and shape, into millions of superimposed roses. They are not like the concrete roses in flower shops, they are like mirror images, light and glittering. Let me show you!

[He again helps Madeline to lie on the sofa and starts to paint, with her face towards the canvas. He paints a portrait of a dancing Madeline, in which she seems to place her hands on the shoulders of someone, but he does not include himself in the painting. Her gesture is graceful and her body seems like floating. She smiles sweetly with blush on her cheeks, and overlapping shadows of red roses hovering over her hair like aureole. The surrounding is depicted as green and crystalline, like the vanished crystal. Madeline regards the painting in silence, blinking constantly. Roderick puts the brush down carefully when he finishes, and pushes the canvas slightly towards Madeline.]

It is yours. It is what I have taken from you. Please keep it. I am sorry.  
[He bows towards Madeline. She looks at him for a few minutes, then falls upon him. He caresses her hair, and her lips start moving slightly, with no discernable voice made.]

Madeline, my angel. Forgive me, for not understanding your heavenly words. Yet I still feel and see their lovely forms. No, I am beginning to hear, yes, I feel that, I will understand them one day. I also feel that day would be far, but it will come. I believe so. Wait for me, please.   
Nevertheless, your words keep sending me strawberries in spring, fresh creatures with lustrous blood. But there is a calling, which pierces through my heart, the darkened blood of a kin, depriving me of the bright sword to defend my heart and then kissing it with a deadly tenderness I can never doubt or resist. The aging and suffering of a kin…the desperate calling for company…The house has been the Usher’s closest kin for countless ages, and it used to be a radiant palace, like that in the song, like what the songwriter, that ancestor had seen. The house was awakened, by their music, and then it bore a life upon its grand body, and a golden reddish bond between it and the Ushers that nothing could break. That’s why its blood can run into my heart, and cast a veil upon it. The veil blinds me, letting me see only the decaying of the house, nothing but the decaying, like someone immersed in the agony of a friend, and is blind to anything else in the world. But my wretched kin, it keeps denying my effort to bring light, and seems intoxicated by the Night, who would deny the partings of all its kins, and its inevitable parting with me.   
Can this be repaired? Can I put on a golden dress on it once again? Yes, that could be done, but only to hurt the vacant eyes of the suffered with the cold golden leaves. I could only wait, for it to come to life again, or for it to fall into rest forever. I would be with it, whatever it chooses.   
But with my finger I have called you, and you did come. You are the angel of the house, and I’m sure, I’m sure that you could cure both of us, with your ever burning candle.

ACT V  
Scene I  
N finally arrives. A few trees near the house are decayed, and minute fungi now spread the whole exterior. A newly made tangled web-work hangs from the eaves.  
As soon as he approaches the house, N feels some pressure upon his heart, some force he deems as gloomy and unexplainable.   
He is now talking to Roderick in the dining hall. 

Three years have passed. Madeline becomes more pallid and spiritless as if she has given her energy to her aureole, the shadows of roses. Yet the candle in her eyes becomes brighter each day.

N: Yes, you mentioned your sister’s illness, and the symptoms.

Roderick: There is more. She is with the house, like the sculpture of an angel that protects and lights it.

N: And now the house is dark.

Roderick: But she is not, and she will never be. Her eyes are luminous beyond everything, beyond all the living and the dead. I think she will show me her wings, and she’d depart, to her heavenly world, to the world where she truly belongs. Do you think she could she could return there?

N: I know it pains you, but everyone dies.

Roderick: Her eyes, they are like candles that could light the whole world, yours and ours. They have told me that her soul could never die. She could travel to other worlds and light them, or she could return to heaven and light us all. Death would rather retreat to a dewy valley at her glance.

N: But bodies will die.

Roderick: The death of her body means less to me, knowing that her soul lives forever. But she’d leave and take the house with her, and I would be a relic of a vanished kingdom, with a ghostly flame in my heart, kneeling down on the barren land and singing all days to nothingness…

N: You could find somewhere.

Roderick: No, nowhere except her heart or mine. Our heart is my last haven. 

N: I’m sorry.

Roderick: But she’s the angel of Usher! She will not leave me!

N: Yes.

Roderick: But what if her world calls, and it is not in her power to take me with her?

N: You will. At last.

Roderick: I know, I know we belong to different worlds, but I want to be with her.

N: You are now.

Roderick: We are always together. In our heart.

N: Yes.

Roderick: But I’m still afraid. What if she can’t return? What if she is trapped in this empty, concrete world?

N: I guess we all are.

Roderick: I feel, I do feel she would leave, and would take my heart with her. Then I would be a vacant wood, like those decayed trees when the house falls!

[Madeline passes by with the help of two servants. N stares at her silhouette, as if looking for something. When he finally turns, he sees Roderick’s still hands covered with his silent tears.]

N: (faintly) Everything will be fine.

Scene II  
Madeline is dying. Roderick sits beside her bed, with a brush in his hand, and some pigment in a plate on the desk. 

Roderick: My angel, I am imploring you, to take my heart with you on your journey, and to your destination. Not my heart, not the fear and desire in it, but my art, the lightest, brightest part of it, like the sea surface, dappled with beams from all the shining things, a veil that covers and leads to the depth, to the unknown secrets and unstained beauty, the unexplored parts of the world and of human mind. 

[She winks.]

My honor. Roses, we remember and represent them by shape and hue. Imagining what if we take the spirit of the rose out of its body and onto the canvas, can anyone still recognise it? Roses…they are objectified muses in many paintings and writings, or even pleasant servants in daily life. But don’t they have soul? Should people ignore their voice just because they can’t understand their language? I had never seen a real rose in my life before you fell onto me for the first time. Then I saw rose and I was beginning to know what roses were like, stepping away from the treachery in drawings, carvings and books. The dainty creatures, drinking dew and light, staying in the same portion of land all their life, watching people and animals come by, being taken by their desire, or being left in silence again. 

[He paints on her face elaborate pink patterns, which can never be determined as any definite shapes or understandable symbols.]

Now the spirit of rose is depicted, upon the countenance of the rose. This should be easier, for those who have realised their ignorance and are still attempting to understand a rose. Guide them, Madeline, my angel, my rose, on your journey towards heaven.

[Madeline dies as soon as he finishes painting.]

Scene III  
Roderick and N have transported the body of Madeline into the vault in a coffin. When they have settled, they turn the lid of the coffin to look at Madeline for the supposed last time.

[N seems to be surprised by the similitude between Madeline and Roderick, and again stares at them, as if looking for something, but he turns away very shortly, as soon as he notices the pink hue on her face, which he takes as blush. Roderick observes N’s reaction, and sighs in his heart. After replacing the lid, they return to the apartment.]

[Roderick comes back when night falls, carrying his brush and pigments.]

Roderick: The world, standing upon earth, has been established and crushed for thousands of times. Construction, destruction and reconstruction all take and give, taking some ancient hues out of it, and planting some new ones in it. Sometimes the colours do change, sometimes they actually become similar after a few changes. But never the same. Time takes. And people always ask for what is taken, for what is irrecoverable, for what they do not wholly understand. After all, perfection is built upon imagination.   
So I will not ask, I will not ask for what she has lost. I will give, I will simply give the best home I could give her.

[Roderick paints on the walls of the vault with crystalline green. The he endows the green water with lines, lines taken from leaves, from feathers, from woods, from skins, from stones, from everything in the world he ever has a chance to look at.]

Mystery, yes. Unknown, yes. That’s what endows us with wings and eyes.

Scene IV  
Eight days after the placement of Madeline’s body, a tempest is born and the opera performed by wind and rain is so grand that the songs are available to N and Roderick in the house. Hearing mysterious voices for several days and now encounters the tempest, N becomes frightened and leaves his bed. And Roderick greets him at the door, hurried into his bedroom, with a luminousness in his eyes never so arresting before. 

Roderick: And you have not seen it? You have not then seen it? But, stay! You shall. [2]

[Roderick shades the lamp and hurried to a casement, opening it to the tempest. After a few seconds, the vapours, both exotic and native to the room, and the furniture, all seem to be lit by the candle in Madeline’s eyes, and the objects all seem like if they are covered by their own shadows.]

N: You must not—you shall not behold this! These appearances, which bewilder you, are merely electrical phenomena not uncommon—or it may be that they have their ghastly origin in the rank miasma of the tarn. Let us close this casement;—the air is chilling and dangerous to your frame. Here is one of your favorite romances. I will read, and you shall listen:—and so we will pass away this terrible night together. [3]

[N leads Roderick from the window to a seat, and starts reading to him.]

N: And now, the champion, having escaped from the terrible fury of the dragon, bethinking himself of the brazen shield, and of the breaking up of the enchantment which was upon it, removed the carcass from out of the way before him, and approached valorously over the silver pavement of the castle to where the shield was upon the wall; which in sooth tarried not for his full coming, but fell down at his feet upon the silver floor, with a mighty great and terrible ringing sound. [4]  
[Harsh sounds are heard while reading, which makes him and his voice tremble involuntarily. But Roderick is motionless.]

[Enter Madeline, standing outside the door.]

Roderick: Madman! [5] Madman! Madman!  
[He shouts to N desperately.]

N: What? Could you calm down? I’ve told you these things are natural. Natural and common.

Roderick: So remember them, if you want to get to know what is Nature, rather than what is common.  
[He calms down and sighs.]

N: I’d rather forget.

Roderick: But you will not. All your memory rests in your mind, they could be like sand at the bottom of sea, but they are there. And they will come to you, when your mind summons them. Now, keep silent and wait.

N: I can’t!

Roderick: Then I will tell you. She has made her way out of her resting place. She has come upstairs. She now stands at the door.   
[He speaks gently and softly.]  
She is coming for me!  
[He suddenly exclaims, outpouring the fountain of passion supplying him in all his dramas and his whole life.]

[Madeline trembles at the door, placing her hand upon her beating heart. Blood and trace of bitter struggle rest upon her white skin and white robe. She regards Roderick in silence.]

Roderick: The blood of a rose, the blood that forms a rose, the blood flowing in all things, the blood constructing the world…circulating or shading through the struggle to feel, to speak, to stand, to understand, to embrace, to kiss, to leave, to return. To return…the ultimate of mind and body, the ultimate of feelings and art. We are to share the golden throne of love and beauty, and will never need to miss each other again. Embrace me, my sister.

[Madeline cries ecstatically, and falls upon Roderick. They both die.]

[Enter Lady Roshana]

[N flees with horror. Arriving at some distance, he turns back and sees a radiant palace that Roderick used to describe, though he does not remember when. Then he hears the voice of Lady Roshana, who is singing a song nobody could understand, a song that makes all beings tremble and weep, that summons an intense ray luminous beyond everything out of their hearts, while the palace vanishes.]

Notes:   
Lines from [1] to [5] are all taken from the original text of ‘The Fall of House of Usher’.


End file.
